Why is the lowest bid often not the lowest cost?

Because a low bid usually means less scope, not better pricing. Items the bidder excluded — permits, disposal, access, patch and paint, code upgrades — do not disappear; they return as change orders after the contract is signed, when there is no competitive pressure left to control the price.

How many bids should a property manager collect?

Three is the working standard for most repair and capital projects, and many management agreements and HOA governing documents require it. Three gives a defensible median to price scope gaps against. Two leaves no way to tell which bidder is the outlier; more than four rarely changes the decision.

What should you do when one bid excludes something?

Price the exclusion at what the other bidders charged for it and add that to the bid total. That is scope normalization. A bid that looks $6,000 cheaper often lands within a few hundred dollars once permits and disposal are added back at market rate.

What is the difference between an exclusion and an allowance?

An exclusion is work the contractor is not doing at any price — someone else must cover it. An allowance is a placeholder dollar amount for work in the contract whose final cost is not yet known. Exclusions create scope gaps; allowances create budget risk. Both distort a bottom-line comparison.

How to compare contractor bids that aren't apples to apples

How do you compare contractor bids that are not apples to apples?

Normalize every bid to one common scope before comparing any prices. List each line item, mark which bidders included it, and price the gaps at what the others charged. Only then compare totals. BidsScores does that normalization automatically and scores each bid on true cost rather than the headline number.

Why three bids rarely line up

You asked three contractors to price the same repair and got back three documents that describe different work. One quoted the tear-out; one assumed you'd handle disposal; one folded in patch-and-paint that the others left out. The bottom-line numbers look comparable, but they aren't — and picking the low number is how a project quietly goes over budget six weeks in.

Normalize first, then compare

The fix is scope normalization: restate every bid as what it would cost to finish the whole job. Build one master list of every line item across all the bids, mark what each bid includes and excludes, and price the gaps at the median of what the other bidders charged. Only then compare totals. A bid that looked $6,000 cheaper often lands within a few hundred dollars once permits and disposal are added back at market rate.

Keep the paper trail

Whether you do this in a spreadsheet or with software, keep the comparison. The record of what each bid included, what it excluded, and why you chose the one you did is what protects you when an owner or a board asks, two years later, why you didn't take the cheapest bid. BidsScores builds that normalized comparison automatically and produces a report written for exactly that conversation.

Compare your bids on true cost, not the headline number.

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Common questions

Why is the lowest bid often not the lowest cost?: Because a low bid usually means less scope, not better pricing. Items the bidder excluded — permits, disposal, access, patch and paint, code upgrades — do not disappear; they return as change orders after the contract is signed, when there is no competitive pressure left to control the price.
How many bids should a property manager collect?: Three is the working standard for most repair and capital projects, and many management agreements and HOA governing documents require it. Three gives a defensible median to price scope gaps against. Two leaves no way to tell which bidder is the outlier; more than four rarely changes the decision.
What should you do when one bid excludes something?: Price the exclusion at what the other bidders charged for it and add that to the bid total. That is scope normalization. A bid that looks $6,000 cheaper often lands within a few hundred dollars once permits and disposal are added back at market rate.
What is the difference between an exclusion and an allowance?: An exclusion is work the contractor is not doing at any price — someone else must cover it. An allowance is a placeholder dollar amount for work in the contract whose final cost is not yet known. Exclusions create scope gaps; allowances create budget risk. Both distort a bottom-line comparison.